(February 26, 2015 at 9:06 pm)Faith No More Wrote: Most of the time you don't have to worry about a No True Scotsman, because they'll say something like, "I used to be an atheist. I was always mad at god. Yada, yada, yada..." Usually they make it so obvious that it's just a misguided, cheap debating tactic that you're completely justified in calling them out on it.I am still analyzing the No True Scotsman to determine whether it is truly a specific fallacy of it's own, or merely a proxy for one or more other fallacy (specifically, in the case of this conversation, what I call the "recursive fallacy" -- but I believe is more commonly known as "circular reasoning"). In some cases even, the No True Scotsman proxy is used as a false-alarm fallacy-allegation aimed at discrediting someone who validly calls out a Fallacy of Ambiguity (as I saw it used here http://www.defendingthebible.org/no-true...llacy.html to discredit people who point out that Answers Research Journal does not meet the requirements for being taken seriously as a scientific publication).
But, assuming it is truly a fallacy of it's own, believe that for this to be a No True Scotsman would require two things (among possibly others as well):
#1: Your only evidence for calling someone out as not having been a true atheist is that they later converted to theism.
#2: Your only basis for assuming that it is impossible for a true atheist to convert to theism (hence the validity of pattern #1) is 'proof' based on the fact that, once pattern #1 is applied to everyone, there will be no remaining cases of a 'true' atheist later converting to theism.
Surely it's obvious why I see this as nothing more than example of the Circular Reasoning fallacy ---- and giving it a separate name like "No True Scotsman" is IMHO redundant.
